Important Dates----------------------Submission deadline: June 15, 2007Workshop date: September 16, 2007

Transitive Materials: Towards an Integrated Approach to Material Technology--------------------------------------------------------------------------The worlds of architecture, fashion and ubiquitous computing are rapidly converging. Shape-changing polymers, parametric design, e-textiles, sensor networks, and intelligent interfaces are now positioned to provide the underpinnings of truly ubiquitous interactivity. Seamless and effective integration will determine our ability to create more cohesive computational systems that extend invisibly from on-body to indoor environment to urban-scale structures, and can more meaningfully respond to our personal and social actvities.

This workshop will focus on the use of responsive materials as the physical and computational bridge between form and function, body and environment, structures and membranes. Rather than overlaying computation using add-on patches or gadgets, we seek to define and emphasize the integration of novel “transitive materials” that blur the gap between computation and structure, and between disciplines that have traditionally stood apart.

We hope to foster an open discussion between researchers and practitioners from the design (architecture, fashion, textiles) and scientific disciplines (ubicomp, wearables, computation, materials), in order to shed light on the possibilities and limitations brought forth by new material technologies. We also hope to explore how such transitive materials can function as the binding matter in the design of objects, garments and spaces that realize truly omnipresent interactivity.

Workshop Format and Submission Instructions-------------------------------------------------------------We invite researchers and practitioners from the design (architecture, fashion, textiles) and scientific disciplines (ubicomp, wearables, computation, materials) to submit their work. Full submission details are available at the workshop website (http://ambient.media.mit.edu/transitive).

Marcelo Coelho is a Graduate Student at the Ambient Intelligence Group at the MIT Media Lab, in Cambridge, USA. His work explores how technology can refashion communication by incorporating computation into common substrates, materials and structures. Some of his projects include experimental websites, reactive garments, flying robots and edible circuits.
Marcelo holds a BFA in Computation Arts, with highest honors, from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. Before joining the MIT Media Lab, Marcelo worked as a researcher at XS Labs developing wearable technology and interactive textiles.
His art and computational explorations have been published and showed at the Societe des arts technologiques (2003), VAV Gallery (2004), Digifest (2004), Collision Collective (2007), SIGGRAPH (2003, 2005, 2006, 2007), ISWC (2005), Ubicomp (2007) and CHI (2006, 2008), among others.